Apple may not have been the first to do this, but they were the ones who popularised it. They also make it easy: no need for complex buttons to press, Apple have pioneered the "open-hand" gesture, which causes the device to drop, and initiate destruction after a short time period.

Other products may win out on paper in terms of pure feature lists, but it's the attention to little details, such as the seamless integration of a music player and a product that blows up in your face.

Delivering products that have the consumer in mind, and having corporate policies that also have the consumer in mind are two entirely different things! I'm sorry, Apple fans, but Apple is just as hognoxious as Microsoft in many respects. Better quality products? Sure, I suppose. Less bloodthirsty management? Nope.

I would agree with this sentiment, and as someone who owns a lot of Apple gear, I'd add that my experience has been pleasant insofar as the electronics works well, but their customer care leaves much to be desired. I also think Apple's iCulture of iSecrecy has gone iTooFar. The need to control every aspect of the user experience leads Apple to do evil things (whereas Microsoft, on the other hand, is just evil).

Apple's business model seems to be to produce things that people really want, but then screw them as much as possible for every penny they can get once they own one. A lot of companies look for ways to make more money once you own the product, but it seems that Apple is a lot more evil than most.

All the people I work with have iPhones, and at first I though I'd quite like to own one. Actually, I still would, if they worked as well as they should. Problem is, all of them now have very poor battery life and w

He didn't say they were customer centric, but that they had a "customer centric Aura". The first requires a corporate culture that cares about the customer, the second requires a marketing department that works very hard to make the customer think you care about them. Amazingly a lot of companies work very hard at the second even though the first is much easier to accomplish (and harder to lose).

No. The standard mouse since 2005 is called Mighty Mouse [wikipedia.org] and has 4 configurable buttons - although you can't visually distinguish them (that actually is a flaw). Prices start at $999 for a MacBook, not $2000.

I bought a 24" white iMac (2006). It worked perfect up until it was 2.5 years old, when I started having video issues with it. It was under Applecare, so I brought it into the local Apple store, and they fixed it on-site (took a couple days, unfortunately).

Similar issues re-occured a few days after getting it back, then after a second repair it happened a third time. The computer DID work each time when I got it back, and the symptoms were different each time... so I can't really blame them. They replace all the major componants in the process too.

However, after 2 repairs and 3 similar faults, they replaced the machine with a brand-new 2009 aluminum iMac - with bigger/better/faster everything. Even the lowest-end machine would have beaten my old one, but they gave me the mid-line one anyways. They even offered this without me pushing. On top, they even gave me a free mini-DVI converter for my second monitor because my old cable was a different plug on the old iMac.

So - although I agree this incdent looks horrid, I would argue that they're certainly not as bad as the majority of corporations these days. I'm certainly a lot more brand-loyal than I was 6 months ago.

I go through a lot of Apple hardware in the course of my business. Any time I have a problem I try to walk into an Apple store to get it taken care of. Their face to face CS is excellent, over the phone is pretty much the same as everyone else.

This is not unusual for companies that position themselves as high end brands. If you can pull it off, pretend you are going to buy a Cartier watch in a Cartier store and they'll outfit you with a Cohiba to smoke and some high end scotch to drink while you make up your mind. Free shoe shine. Ridiculous stuff.

I had a similar situation with the ill-fated (and downright cursed) 800 MHz G3 iBook. The problem did not occur until a year after I had made the purchase and my initial warranty had expired. It was a known issue, so they repaired it free of charge. Four times, about once a year.

The last time it happened they advised me the repair program was coming to an end after several years and encouraged me to get an Applecare program for it. I was out of work at the time so I couldn't afford it. Turns out, if I had, they would've provided me a newer iBook should I experience the problem again (which I did) as they'd exhausted their supplies for the replacement logic boards.

I got a little pissy with them when I called them up after the last instance, but they always remained understanding and professional.

In the end, I found out what the problem actually was. I fixed it with a wedge of cardboard.

Does it ever annoy you when on second down an NFL linebacker tackles a running back behind the line of scrimmage and comes up pumping his fist in the air, as if he single-handedly won the Super Bowl?

Does it ever bug you when a major league soccer player scores into an empty net and runs the field with their shirt over their head, as if the Copa Mundial is theirs, alone, for eternity?

And in both cases, they are merely doing their job to expectations?

We're so ill-served by coporations that when one just does the right thing, we celebrate it as a happening. So much so that we even celebrate when one would offer to fix a problem they know about, have avoided a complete resolution to, and decries their supposed technological brilliance and superior engineering.

I do this too. My new Bluetooth headset is fritzed. I was honestly suprised the company didn't even squeak, but asked me to mail it back for a new one. I was gassed. Then I realized, hey, they should do that, it was about 3 weeks old. Well, we'll see.

I had an iBook G4 that broke down during its 1 year warranty period. It wouldn't boot at all. I took it to the local Apple Authorised Service Provider and got it repaired. It came back, and worked for a few days, and then the same thing happened again. It went back for repair again, and this time it stayed for weeks. I'm told by the AASP that it went through a couple of motherboards during this time.

Three weeks after the initial fault, I phoned Apple and asked for a replacement, but was told that there was no way that could happen and I would just have to wait for it to be repaired. I gave the guy an earful before I hung up.

Four weeks after the initial fault, I phoned again. This time the Apple rep described my situation as 'clearly unacceptable' and immediately offered me the choice of a refund or replacement. (I took the refund and bought the latest higher-spec, lower price iBook, and pocketed the change. It's still going strong today.)

Sometimes it really does depend on who you get to talk to at the call centre (and this goes for all companies).

But we are talking about commodity components, not pre-built systems if we are talking about desktops. You can't buy a good pre-built system - they simply don't make them. You can get boutique built systems that are good, but they tend to be Apple-Expensive.

You can easily compare a Mac desktop to a commodity built system... just pick the same parts. Price = 1/2. You're paying 2x the cost for the OS and the little DRM chip that lets it run. It's an Apple tax, just like the Microsoft tax, just a hell of

I was disappointed in the response by Trading Standards, who compared to other consumer protection bodies around the world are generally good eggs:

"The Trading Standards Institute said that it could not comment on whether such letters were standard across the industry, but that it could understand that Apple would want to protect its reputation by trying to reach a confidential settlement."

Apple isn't trying to protect its reputation. Apple's reputation INCLUDES exploding iPods - albeit a pretty small number of them. What Apple's trying to do by gagging people whose iPods explode is FALSIFY its reputation; making it appear that the problem doesn't exist.

I hate to say it but, there appears to be a little wriggling worm at the center of that nice shiny, tasty-looking apple.

As much as I hate them, their warranty replacement is ridiculously simple and fast. Anytime I've had an issue with Dell components under warranty they ship a replacement out without arguing. They don't even require me to ship the item back first, they just ship out the replacement and include a return label that I put the broken part in and ship it back for free.

I can fault Dell for many things, but warranty replacement is not one of them.

Apple better watch this type of behavior; there's only so much fanboys will overlook. (Former/still kinda Apple fanboy here.) Google's been getting more and more of the "cool cred" that Apple established, and if Google's Chrome OS hits its stride, it may be worth taking a real good look at. Plus there'll be a much wider variety of hardware to choose from. Hmm...wonder if Google will partner with a device maker for a portable audio device?

Apple customer support is notoriously spotty. Sometimes you call them, get to talk to a human, and they ship out a replacement that arrives within a day or two. Sometimes you don't. The first time my PowerBook needed servicing, it took about 45 minutes on the phone (most of it on hold, on a 10p/minute customer support line) to get them to send a box out to collect it. They said it should be back in a few days. A week later I called them and was told it had been shipped back and would be with me soon. Another week later, I called them again and was told that it had been returned to the repair centre because I wasn't in when the courier tried to deliver it. Next call, I was told that it had never made it to the repair centre (i.e. the first two things I had been told were outright lies) - that UPS had a signature for someone at the repair centre but it had never made it into their repair tracking system.

After eight hour on the phone (at 10p/minute) and six weeks, they finally sent me a replacement (good thing I backed up the disk before sending it in...). The replacement was DoA - it didn't even boot, it just got hotter and hotter until you pulled the battery out.

Two weeks later, they sent me another replacement. This one actually worked, but had the wrong amount of RAM. A few days later they sent me some replacement DIMMs to install. I did, and a couple of months later, one of the RAM slots failed (this having been one of the faults that I had originally posted the machine in to get fixed).

The next repair, they replaced the motherboard with one with a slower CPU. Then they over-tightened the hinges so first time I opened it after getting it back one of them snapped. They then failed to honour this as a warranty replacement (luckily for me, the local computer shop that was handling the repairs decided to absorb this cost to generate some goodwill).

But over the same period I had several Mac-using friends who had repairs happen without any trouble. The most irritating thing was that all of my complaints were met by being told that Apple is consistently ranked top for customer support in independent surveys. This may be true, but it doesn't alter the fact that they consistently and repeatedly screwed up in my particular case.

I've had similar experiences. I actually bought the 12" PowerBook quite a while ago. I never had any trouble with that laptop and I found it to be incredibly rugged. The hard drive went bad after a few years of abuse and I replaced it and it still works today, despite the copious amounts of dings, dents, and scratches I've inflicted on it. I'm sorry to hear you didn't have the same experience I did with the PowerBook.

However, a while back I bought a 13" MacBook. I really don't like large laptops and at the time the 13" MacBook Pro wasn't on the market. A few months after I got it the hard drive basically died on me. After quite a lot of work searching error codes and doing general research I determined that this was the cause. I don't remember exactly, but I believe you get 3 months of AppleCare Protection or whatever when you buy Mac from them. I believe four or five months had passed since I bought it, so I wasn't covered under that, but I still had a 1 year warranty. So I called Apple to tell them that the hard drive died and I need a replacement. I told them exactly how I determined it was the hard drive and that I really just need it replaced (user replaceable on the MacBook). After about ten minutes they explained that I can't call them for this sort of thing unless I wanted to buy a 1 year AppleCare Protection Plan. I told them that I wasn't going to spend money on something like that since it's covered in my warranty. They told me I could go into an Apple store to get the problem fixed.

So I was kind of miffed at this point and a while later I went to an Apple store which was about an hour drive from me. I spoke with their pretentiously named Geniuses who told me that since I didn't have an AppleCare Protection Plan they wouldn't fix it unless I made an appointment in advance. However, if I bought the 1 year plan I could drop it off that day (see a pattern?). I politely told them that I live nowhere near the Apple store and this was a special trip and that I wasn't going to buy a plan just to have them honor the warranty. So they told me to call Apple again.

So again I called Apple. This time the customer service rep said they would replace the hard drive. So they sent me an empty box to return my entire laptop in. After a while, not sure how long, they sent it back and everything was okay. The only really good thing to come out of this was they replaced the top plastic face where the keyboard is since the plastic had chipped away quite severely*.

All in all I think Apple makes some good products. My PowerBook was an amazing laptop, at least for me, but the MacBook is apparently made without durability in mind. The real problem I have with Apple is their customer service which seems more interested in selling you the AppleCare Protection Plan than actually helping you. When I need a new laptop I'll almost definitely not get another Mac laptop simply because of the nonsense I went through.

As always, your mileage may vary.

*I'm not sure who thought it was a good idea to put relatively brittle plastic where the magnetic latches close, but a couple years later the plastic has chipped away on a large portion of that piece. When I got it back I made sure to close my laptop ludicrously carefully so it wouldn't chip, and it still did.

Such settlement terms are par for the course if you sue them. But if you ask for a refund? Just a "Hey, this thing you sold me blew up. Can I have my money back?" incurs a lifetime of legal liability if I tell anyone about it?

May as well just sue them then, get a judgment, and be able to tell everyone about it. Or tell the world and then demand your refund (which you're still entitled to).

You must not have seen heavy makeup.... Try any of Avril Lavigne's followers.

Anyway, that's obviously a staged shot, so the makeup was applied by the photographer's studio. Not surprising. Heck, I've had more than that pancaked on my face - when they were doing marketing shots for a control panel I built. (And, yes, I'm a middle aged guy.)

The Times has learnt that the company would offer the family a full refund only if they were willing to sign a settlement form. The proposed agreement left them open to legal action if they ever disclosed the terms of the settlement.

I don't see where it says they can't say the iPod exploded.

I do see where it says they can't disclose the terms of the settlement, which is absolutely normal and common as far as settlement language goes.

I've never heard of anyone having to sign anything when given a refund (for whatever reason), let alone not being able to tell anyone about the simple existence of it (see later - it's not just the terms, but "agree that you will keep the terms and existence of this settlement agreement completely confidential").

Did anyone claim "they can't say the iPod exploded"?

Was there something newsworthy here that I missed?

I find it ironic that when there'd bad publicity for Apple, we hear pleading that it's not newsworthy. Well, every Iphone story we get day after day isn't really newsworthy - the Apple publicity works both ways.

From TFA:âoeIt made a hissing noise,â he said. âoeI could feel it getting hotter in my hand, and I thought I could see vapourâ. Mr Stanborough said he threw the device out of his back door, where âoewithin 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10ft in the airâ.

"They're putting a life sentence on myself, my daughter and Ellie's mum, not to say anything to anyone. If we inadvertently did say anything, no matter what, they would take litigation against us. I thought that was absolutely appalling.

The father says "not to say anything to anyone". If you're familiar with logic, you'll note that the phrase "exploding ipod" is a subset of "anything". Basically, the guy and his daughter are acting hysterically, Apple gives them what they asked for (a refund)

It does seem like it was a standard settlement boilerplate, and the family misinterpreted it. Mind you, companies are happy to barf legalese at us when we can misunderstand it in their favour, so I'm happy to see someone misunderstand that legalese in a way that harms a company's PR.

What a lot of people aren't getting is the role the legal system is playing here.

If this were merely a "refund" as you suggest, the courts wouldn't be involved at all. They are, becasue it's a settlement agreement. Apple is trying to get by with their end of the settlement being a refund of the purchase price, which is insane... but then the family doens't have to accept the settlement, do they?

Which brings us to why this is not, as the headline, summary, and article all try to mislead you into thinking,

The Times has learnt that the company would offer the family a full refund only if they were willing to sign a settlement form. The proposed agreement left them open to legal action if they ever disclosed the terms of the settlement.

I don't see where it says they can't say the iPod exploded.

I do see where it says they can't disclose the terms of the settlement, which is absolutely normal and common as far as settlement language goes.

Was there something newsworthy here that I missed?

Even if a gag order is a normal part of a settlement, it is an unwanted part and an indication of a business which does not value its consumers. A business to asking someone to keep quiet in order to have a problem resolved is pretty arrogant.

A business to asking someone to keep quiet in order to have a problem resolved is pretty arrogant.

To honest consumers like you and me and them? Sure. But the article notes that this is more common on older iPods (imagine that - fancy newfangled batteries are more prone to trouble as they get older?) and from a corporate lawyer's viewpoint, having settlements and their terms made public only increases the risk of people running 250V through their years-old iPods in hopes of getting a shiny new one.

Wish I had mod points to bump you up. Monetary settlements generally have NDAs associated with them so the company doesn't go bankrupt as people compare what others received. In the case of an exploding iPod, having only delivered a simple refund, Apple should have left off the NDA so the next time this happens, they can say, "Standard settlement is the price of the iPod. Anything more than that and you'll have to go up against our lawyers for the next 10 years."

Why not publicly give the girl a refund and then reiterate the fact that this can happen with ANY Lithium Ion battery, and that the odds of it happening to you are about 1 in 11 million, and even less if you use a modicum of care. Instead they get to meet the Streisand effect, drawing huge amounts of attention to a COMPLETE non-issue, making themselves look like (Godwin alert) Nazis and making the minor tech failure seem like a huge catastrophic problem, surely hurting sales. It really blows my mind that a tech savvy company like Apple can still honestly think that it is possible to hide knowledge in this information age. iDiots...

And what do you propose to do with all those corporate lawyers if companies simply acted sensibly and didn't default to litigation for everything? The unemployment rate is already sky-high, we don't need a wave of unemployable, irritable suits hitting the streets.

"I can guarantee you that the person whose job it is to dispense the legal boilerplate is not up on the Streisand effect or any other Slashdot memes"

Why aren't they? The Streisand effect is only a Slashdot meme in name, it is fairly common sense that this sort of thing would happen in an age where information travels as rapidly as it does. Why doesn't anyone at the legal team think about things a little bit before they act? It would be in everyone's (yes, even the lawyers') best interest to use a bit of common sense in these sorts of things.

I used to be very similar, thinking that OS X users were being cushioned from the harsh world of real technology. Now I am a Mac user, and I'm happy to report that in fact I am being cushioned from the harsh world of having to hack the registry, of having to manually install drivers, of having to repeatedly alter system settings because something decided it would be fun to change them, of having to deal with people who say "just read the manual" when nobody has bothered to document it properly, of arcane command line switches that have no consistency between products. Instead, I can get on with being tech-savvy without the computer getting in the way.

Don't confuse "tech-savvy" with "can find their way around the registry" or "knows which command line switch makes obscurelinuxtoolset run in the mode you would expect it to run in by default".

How is being known as a company that issues gag orders when their products are dangerously defective "in the best interests of the stockholders"?

You'd think building a good corporate image and excellent customer service would be in the best interest of the stockholders, since such companies are more successful long-term.

This is one of the reasons I think we should have high capital gains taxes on ALL short-term gains. Do it on a sliding scale. 90% for a month, 80% for 3 months, 60% for 6 months, etc.. going down to zero for very long term investments.

I bet these shenanigans would stop quickly if LONG TERM growth were rewarded, and short term gains ignored.

Really. Li-poly batteries in these applications have no housing except the housing of the device; they're a metallized plastic bag full of gelled chemistry goodness, basically. Crunch it the wrong way and you get an internal short and a runaway reaction, which produces a lot of gas - and the whole battery acts like one of those "popping bags" you can get at 7-11 and toystores.

Depends on the device's mechanical design, and how it lands. The most likely failure mode (I would think, from inspection of such equipment) is that the battery will deform under impact, and try to conform to the shape of some internal sharp pointy bit, or a tall component on the PCB underneath, and it will put just that little bit too much pressure on the battery's internal separator layers. But you will see in most cases this is not going to happen - the battery sits in a compartment with no sharp ribs, c

Oh, chinese-designed devices. The really scary part about those is the charging electronics, if they even deserve to be called "electronics". Last one I tore apart had a diode and a resistor as the "charging circuit". For a li-ion battery. For the non-initiated: li-ion batteries require a smart charger for any kind of safe, reliable charging.

The only reason that thing didn't blow up on every charge was because of the protection chip built into the battery. They were relying on it consistently tripping on every charge to avoid disaster.

That bottle of water is dangerous, I tell you! Have you not heard of the dangers of Dihydrogen monoxide [dhmo.org]? Besides, you could splash it in the pilot's eyes. Then, while he's temporarily blinded, he could push forward on the controls sending the plane into a death spiral. We must ban all water bottles on airplanes! Won't someone think of the pilots' eyes?!!!

The letter also stated that, in accepting the money, Mr Stanborough was to "agree that you will keep the terms and existence of this settlement agreement completely confidential", and that any breach of confidentiality "may result in Apple seeking injunctive relief, damages and legal costs against the defaulting persons or parties".

Gag?! Sensationalism ftw!

Where I come from we call that buying silence. Everyone tries for that stuff, if there wasn't Apple nobody would care.

The real story here is that we have an exploding iPod and pictures of the result.

I don't think Apple can brush this one under the carpet. What if this were to have happend inside an airoplane at 30,000ft. No so much the explosion but the toxic, carcinogenic fumes would inevitably be curculated around the aircraft explosing 100+ passengers and those in direct contact with the ipod could suffer serious burns, eye damage, etc. To place a gag order on those effected as a messure to cover up the defect is pure negligence and would leave them open to possibly pay huge settlements for future incidents. Seems smarter to issue a warning / disclaimer than to leave yourself open. I doubt it would seriously effect sales, people would still buy them anyway.

The people to call when this happens are Failure Analysis Associates, an engineering consultancy that analyzes engineering failures. They started with building structural failures, and they've branched out. They call themselves "The Exponent Group" now.

One of the things they do is battery failure investigation. [exponent.com] These are the people your class action lawyer brings in to find out what really happened. Companies with a clue use this to fix their manufacturing processes. Whether or not Apple has a clue about this, or whether they just take whatever their China supplier gives them, remains to be determined in court.

What has America got to do with this story? Several pointers as to why this is a UK story (and no, despite appearances to the contrary we're not part of the US yet):

1. Its a story from the Times - a major UK broadsheet newspaper.2. He obtained the iPod at Argos which I believe is not present in the US.3. He's from Liverpool - which, last time I looked, is in England in the context of this article.4. Trading Standards Institute is the UK consumer protection board.

Oops assumed because Apple is an American company, America can be substituted with whatever country it originates from and the question still stands. However, considering New Zealand copied most of British law I would be surprised if they didn't have a similar consumer legislation. In which case Apple could be in for very large fines.

I think the knee-jerk assumption when you read about a large, American company building products that can maim or kill their users, then attempting to stifle free speech to protect their bottom line, is that it's a U.S.-centric story.

Mostly because other first-world countries don't have our (U.S.) level of legalistic crazy-stupid.

Doesn't America have anything like the Consumer Guarantees Act [consumeraffairs.govt.nz]? If something like this happened in New Zealand, Apple would be legally liable and have to fix the device or refund the money [consumeraffairs.govt.nz] with no strings attached. If there had been consequent damage to other property they would have to pay for that too.

Since this happened in the UK, it doesn't really matter if the U.S. has such a law. A U.S. Consumer Protection Law would not apply in the UK.
Additionally, such a law would not stop a company from trying to get people to sign such a settlement. It would just mean that they have to make good even if the consumer refuses.

Doesn't America have anything like the Consumer Guarantees Act [consumeraffairs.govt.nz]? If something like this happened in New Zealand, Apple would be legally liable and have to fix the device or refund the money [consumeraffairs.govt.nz] with no strings attached. If there had been consequent damage to other property they would have to pay for that too.

You misunderstand the law like most people. The retailer is liable, not the manufacturer. From your link: "The Act requires the retailer who supplied the goods to sort out any problems. This means a retailer can not tell you to take the problem to the manufacturer."

The law is almost identicle in the UK. The article says the man took the iPod back to Argos (the shop), but they referred him to Apple (incorrectly, but they know consumers don't know the law).

No. There are tens of millions of iPods out there. Lots of people must drop them. If they were expected to explode when dropped, the streets would be littered with singed and blood-spattered white earbuds, and Apple would have had their asses sued off ages ago. However there is a possibility that anything with a lithium battery could explode violently if dropped, faulty or not.

If so are there warnings?

I'm sure that buried in amongst all the warnings about not playing music too loud, not crossing the road while listening to music, n

Proportions and statistics. As many people note, these kind of occurrence are quite rare. If you consider that every pissed off person has a one on a billion chance to go postal (that's still high!) he is more likely to go after his own school, hospital, city hall, company, church or the generally crowded street he takes every day. These are far more annoying in average that your regular high tech company. We hear a lot of complaint about RIAA trials on/., but in real life I hear more stories about people

Second, and more importantly, it's pretty standard for a company to require non-disclosure when a settlement agreement is made. In fact, I'd wager that 99% of all settlement agreements made have a non-disclosure clause and the 1% that don't are made by people without a clue.

A settlement implies compensation, not a simple refund. They are legally obliged under consumer law in this case to give a full *no-strings* refund. If they had *also* offered compensation for the inconvience etc. *then* they would have